MISSION VALLEY  The city of San Diego is suing the Regional Water Quality Control Board for approving a major energy firm’s pollution cleanup efforts beneath Qualcomm Stadium and wants a judge to halt the activity.

City Attorney Jan Goldsmith and four City Council members announced the lawsuit Thursday against the board, which issued a permit to Houston-based Kinder Morgan Energy Partners for the cleanup.

In the lawsuit, the city accuses Kinder Morgan of extracting the polluted water from beneath the stadium, partially treating it and then dumping more than 1.2 million gallons per day into nearby Murphy Canyon Creek even though it doesn’t meet the water board’s standards.

The city maintains that it’s impossible to ascertain the status of the cleanup because pumping and dumping of the groundwater keeps the water table low and masks the contamination level.

The city is asking a Superior Court judge to order a halt to the dumping of polluted water into the creek and make Kinder Morgan pump the treated water back into the aquifer beneath the stadium so an accurate assessment of pollution levels can occur.

This pollution saga began in 1986 when the neighboring fuel tank farm, Mission Valley Terminal, leaked millions of gallons of gasoline, jet fuel and diesel fuel into the ground beneath the stadium.

The water board initially issued a cleanup order in 1992 and Kinder Morgan, which bought the facility six years later, inherited the project.

Goldsmith said, “We ask the water board to stop treating Kinder Morgan as the victim in this and do its job. Twenty-seven years is far too long and it’s time that justice is done.”

In January, a federal judge threw out a $250 million lawsuit the city filed against Kinder Morgan that alleged the cleanup was taking too long.

Kinder Morgan spokeswoman Emily Mir said the company has spent more than $60 million on the cleanup and expects to finish by Dec. 31.

“Now, inexplicably, the city is suing the RWQCB, seeking to derail Kinder Morgan’s remaining cleanup on the eve of its completion,” she said.

Dave Gibson, the water board’s executive officer, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.